"I want to inquire whether, amid all the multitudinous subjects which figure in the syllabuses, we are really teaching the right things in the right way; and whether, by teaching fewer things, differently, we might not succeed in “shedding the load” (as the fashionable phrase goes) and, at the same time, producing a better result."
She thought her coevals were not educated as well as literate people of the middle ages. The early part of the speech gives examples of sloppy speaking and writing and thinking that disappointed her. They don't disappoint me in 2021, actually I don't find them easy to react to at all. But farther into the speech, her description of what school could be like is interesting:
Let us now look at the mediaeval scheme of education—the syllabus of the Schools. It does not matter, for the moment, whether it was devised for small children or for older students, or how long people were supposed to take over it. What matters is the light it throws upon what the men of the Middle Ages supposed to be the object and the right order of the educative process. The syllabus was divided into two parts: the Trivium and Quadrivium. The second part—the Quadrivium—consisted of "subjects," and need not for the moment concern us. The interesting thing for us is the composition of the Trivium, which preceded the Quadrivium and was the preliminary discipline for it. It consisted of three parts: Grammar, Dialectic, and Rhetoric, in that order.
Was it really like that? Anyway if you are responsible for educating a young kid it is food for thought as a prescription. Decades later it was influential for America's homeschoolers. When you search google for "homeschool" you find some of those influences. Two of them were the authors of The Well-Trained Mind, quoted at the end of this post.
Maria, now six years old, has 12 grades ahead of her. Sayers paints a picture of them: 4 grades of Grammar, 4 grades of Dialectic, and 4 grades of Rhetoric. I can't anticipate even 12 months ahead, but I can recognize some of my six-year-old in this passage:
My views about child-psychology are, I admit, neither orthodox nor enlightened. Looking back upon myself (since I am the child I know best and the only child I can pretend to know from inside) I recognise in myself three states of development. These, in a rough-and-ready fashion, I will call the Poll-parrot, the Pert, and the Poetic—the latter coinciding, approximately, with the onset of puberty. The Poll-parrot stage is the one in which learning by heart is easy and, on the whole, pleasurable; whereas reasoning is difficult and, on the whole, little relished. At this age one readily memorises the shapes and appearances of things; one likes to recite the number-plates of cars; one rejoices in the chanting of rhymes and the rumble and thunder of unintelligible polysyllables; one enjoys the mere accumulation of things.
If a young kid has some enthusiasm for repetition, how can you make the most of it as a tutor? More on that later. The speech describes kids drilling the times tables, Latin vocabulary, and the names of constellations and of backyard plants and insects. I haven't tried to do that. This part, just as tendentious, had more appeal:
The grammar of History should consist, I think, of dates, events, anecdotes, and personalities. A set of dates to which one can peg all later historical knowledge is of enormous help later on in establishing the perspective of history. It does not greatly matter which dates: those of the Kings of England will do very nicely, provided they are accompanied by pictures of costume, architecture, and all “every-day things,” so that the mere mention of a date calls up a strong visual presentment of the whole period.Geography will similarly be presented in its factual aspect, with maps, natural features and visual presentment of customs, costumes, flora, fauna, and so on; and I believe myself that the discredited and old-fashioned memorising of a few capital cities, rivers, mountain ranges, etc., does no harm. Stamp-collecting may be encouraged.
I found this idea expanded and made practical in The Well-Trained Mind, by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise-Bauer (mother and daughter):
Over the four years of the grammar stage, you'll progress from 5000 BC to the present, accumulating facts the whole way. These four years will be an exploration of the stories of history: great men and women of all kinds; battles and wars; important inventions; world religions; details of daily life and culture; and great books. ...
World history is divided into four segments, one segment per year of study. In the first through fourth grades, the child will study history from 5000 BC though the present day. In fifth through eight grades (the logic stage), he'll study it again, concentrating on cause-and-effect and chronological relationships. In grades 9 through 12, he'll repeat it again, this time studying original sources and writing thoughtful essays about them.
Planning for the shorter term, they recommend covering "ancient history" in one year, "medieval history" the next year, and "the renaissance" and "the modern period" in years three and four. We've learned a lot taking an even shorter-term view. In history (we still call it "reading lesson") each day it is easy to solve the problem of what to teach: review yesterday's reading, and then inch forward in time.
It has not been as easy to decide what to do each day in math lesson.
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